Bernard
Hopkins is 48 years old and at the top of his game, which is boxing. At his age,
he should be retired, and a little, if not a lot, bloated around the
midsection.

Instead, he is telling us how we should really
look at 48, even if we’re not a fighter.

At 48, Bernard Hopkins, a light heavyweight, is
being advertised as the oldest boxing champion in the world. More importantly,
he is being hailed as a dedicated public advocate for good health, how to attain
it and how to keep it. He has become very popular.

It is a powerful commentary on the state of the
sport these days when boxing must rely on how a fighter looks rather than how he
can fight.

No matter. When Hopkins defeated a pretty good
fighter named Tavoris Cloud for the IBF championship in March, he broke
heavyweight George Foreman’s record as the oldest fighter to win a world
championship. I don’t think Foreman, once a heavyweight champion, will fight
again, unless he doesn’t know how old he is.

Actually, there is no such thing as an undisputed
world champion, except for heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko. There is otherwise a
multiplicity of alphabet organizations, each with its own "world" title. But if
a fighter does very well and impresses a lot of fans, he is sort of accepted as
a world champion.

Hopkins deserves credit for having become the
oldest fight king in the world, no matter his alphabet designation, and that’s
the title he will be defending when he fights Karo Murat July 13 at the Barclays
Center in Brooklyn.

Hopkins’ overall record is 53-6-2 with 32
knockouts but his boxing stature is not the big story with him these days. He is
more an unrelenting advocate of good health habits, which he attributes to his
ability to keep on fighting.

"Age is not an enemy to me," he says.

Age is nobody’s friend, either, but Hopkins
insists he can control its inevitable assault on the body beautiful.

His success in the ring at his age these days has
brought him public notice by TV programs such as "Good Morning America’ and "ABC
World News," a sign he is beyond the ordinary.

He philosophically claims, "I am a proud man and
never takes things for granted in my life. I want to be the spokesman for the
40-and-older crowd, inspiring people to believe that no matter their age they
can be healthy and save their lives."

Using organic foods in recipes he creates and
cooks himself, he excludes any white products such as flour, rice or sugar.
Onlookers say it works for him. Looking young, he is a tribute to the old adage,
you are what you eat. He agrees.

"I am not going to eat something that I have been
told is not good for my system and I do what I can to eat energy food, such as
lean meats, whole grains and lots of fruit and vegetables. Without this daily
habit, my body would have given up a long time ago.

"There is no magic pill, no magic drink, no magic
food," he goes on.

Of course, when you’re in that ring, you should
know how to fight as well as eat. Hopkins seems to know how to do both.

HEAT OF THE MOMENT

An anecdote that was missing from the report on
Ken Venturi’s death is one which developed in the dining room of the
Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., in 1964.

In unbearable heat, Venturi, near collapse, had
staggered off the course after the third round of the U.S. Open, followed by the
late Joe Dey, the long-time commissioner of USGA golf.

"I cannot go on. I cannot walk," Venturi muttered
to Dey. "I quit."

"No you don’t," Dey told him.

Venturi insisted he could not go on, but Dey won
out. He summoned a doctor to accompany them and Venturi staggered
out.

I don’t know how Venturi managed to swing the
club on that final walk. Nearby, Dey kept whispering encouragement, which maybe
he was not supposed to do. But if you knew this fine man Joe Dey the way I did
in those days, you didn’t give it a thought.

You know the rest. Venturi was too weak to pick
his final putt out of the hole and probably didn’t realize he had just won the
1964 U.S. Open.

Quotation

"The only birds that talk are parrots, and they don’t fly very
high." — Wilbur Wright